<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>What, is God Scared of a Smile? by Eat_Your_Heart_Out</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887515">What, is God Scared of a Smile?</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eat_Your_Heart_Out/pseuds/Eat_Your_Heart_Out'>Eat_Your_Heart_Out</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depictions of grief, F/M, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Sam Winchester, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Sam Winchester's Demonic Powers, Temporary Character Death, directly after season five, kill the narrator, no one stays dead because this is supernatural, there is a wedding there is no roadhouse</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:55:25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,090</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29887515</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eat_Your_Heart_Out/pseuds/Eat_Your_Heart_Out</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester just survived the apocalypse. He also survived his mother, his father, his little brother, most of his friends and, for one awful moment, his guardian angel. At least it's an outcome that makes sense. He looses everything because he's the monster of the story, this is what he deserves. Right? </p>
<p>Right, except no one agrees. This isn't a story and even if it was, it doesn't have to be a tragedy. Dean may have given up on his own happiness but he's the only one. Sometimes the hero gets the happily ever after they deserve.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Apocalypse Interrupted (the Death Song of Emma Winchester)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Dean stalks out of Bobby’s house, ears ringing with his brother’s pained whimpers. Famine was wrong- he’s not empty inside. Dean is so full of pain he can’t bear to eat. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The thing about suffering though, is that it’s full of empty calories. It fills his stomach with air and leaves him unwilling to try to eat anything at all, but he is still </span>
  <em>
    <span>starving</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’s been so hungry for so long that he’s not even sure what it is that could fill him, but- </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He leaves Bobby’s house that night in search of it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There are two bars in Sioux Falls, the dinky one that Dean and Sam and Bobby usually frequent, and an upscale one that feels out of place in the small town Dean knows. Still, that’s the one he heads for now, if only because he knows no one will recognize him there. He’ll find </span>
  <em>
    <span>something </span>
  </em>
  <span>in a bar- a distraction, a good game, the bottom of a bottle at the very least. One of them will finally fill him. Please, God, let <em>something</em> fill him. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Lydia is not the first woman he sees there, not even the first one he sees looking back at him, but she is the most interesting. Dean knows he’s good looking, knows he can get what and who he wants, so he’s often much more choosy than he looks to spoilsports like Sam. This woman meets all his criteria, so he talks to her for hours and then rocks her world and then disappears into his side of town, the rougher underbelly that a woman like Lydia wouldn’t ever think to look for him. He forgets about her too, lets her fade away under his desperation to find a way to save his brother.  </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Really, he forgets about everything for a while, his head full of the peace and then snarling anger on Sam’s face as he pulled Michael and Adam into the Cage with him and the sound of Castiel’s voice when he asked what Dean wanted. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Peace or freedom?</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That angel is so damn bad at goodbyes, though, so Dean is alone by the time he has to stop for gas. It’s maybe three in the morning, but the Sunco is still open and Dean goes in to buy a coffee and some jerky. He’s got plenty of driving ahead of him and the thought of sleeping feels like a threat. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>There’s a girl waiting at his car when he goes back to it, leaning against the trunk like she belongs there and chewing on the tips of her fingers. "Are you Dean Winchester?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Who wants to know?" he says, shifting his bag and coffee into one hand so he can wrap the other around the demon killing knife. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm Emma,” she says. The wind starts to pick up and she hunches into her canvas jacket. “Can we, like, go somewhere? To talk?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"To ta- kid, where are your parents?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"My mother is in Sioux Falls, South Dakota."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"And your father?" Dean asks after a pause. He expects something awful, or at least that he's in some motel across town, not- </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Well, if my mother was right, I'm looking at him. Do you remember Lydia Tsoukolous?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Here's the thing- Dean </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>remember Lydia. Even as he let her slip from his mind, her face stayed clear in his memory, as if a part of him knew he she’d be important to him again. Then everything she said registers and he takes a half step back. "There's no way," he said. "You're too old for that, I would've had to have been, what? Fifteen? I was still a- I wasn't even going to Sioux Falls back then. And if it </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> true, why didn't she say something when I was with her last week?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Because I didn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>exist </span>
  </em>
  <span>a week ago, genius. Can we go already?”</span>
  <span><br/>
<br/>
</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Dean doesn’t know what to think. There’s something so familiar in the set of her eyebrows and the abrupt way she speaks that he wants to believe her but she’s a </span>
  <em>
    <span>teenager</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Christo</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he says on instinct and she doesn’t flinch, but he still doesn’t move. “Why should I trust you?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t.” she says sharply. “I’m here to kill you, daddy dearest, I just want to do it out of the cold.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He should pull out his knife. He should shoot her or run or at least try to negotiate. Instead, he nods to the passenger side door. “Get in.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The Moonlight All-Night Diner is three miles down the road and the pie is just as good as the sign claims. Dean buys himself two slices instead of actual food because he isn’t really hungry but he also will never pass up pie. Instead, he nudges the menu toward Emma and tells her whatever she gets is on him. She’s thin and suspicious and even if Dean </span>
  <em>
    <span>is</span>
  </em>
  <span> going to die soon, by her hand, he is going to do something nice for her. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>What if he really is her father? </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She orders a double stacked bacon cheeseburger and water, eyeing Dean like she's imagining what his entrails will feel like in her dainty little hands. He looks down at her hands then and realizes not dainty at all. Emma's hands are calloused in the same pattern as Dean's, the pads of her fingers crisscrossed with paper-thin scars like he had when he first learned to throw knives. There is nothing dainty about her. "Is this a play for time?" she asks. She gestures impatiently to the other occupants of the diner when he looks confused. "Taking me to a public place won't stop me from killing you."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean looks around, actually paying attention to their surroundings. It's not crowded, but everyone there seems large, like their story is much more sprawling than a regular person's. A pair of men dressed in nondescript suits stand over another man in a booth who is hunched over an empty plate, refusing to look up. A pair of women sit not far from them, one bored and one not, neither of them attempting to speak over the volume of the music coming from the bored one’s headphones, though the way she plays with her date's fingers tells their whole story. In the booth behind Emma a pair of men sit, one of them scribbling away in a notebook and occasionally brushing curly graying hair from his face while his partner sits across from him, mouth poised over a mic but so enamored with the other man that he never actually says a word. Humanity is seated all around them, lonely and loving and in love. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean's got no one left to love, it feels like. He shrugs and leans back as the waitress sets their food down. "I wanted to share one meal with my daughter. Even if you're not, even if you're just lying to me, I wanted to pay you back for the favor you're doing me."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Those familiar heavy eyebrows come together. "Favor?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"You're gonna kill me, right? I was planning on dying anyway, you're saving me the trouble of having to look for a fight."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I don't-" Emma puts down her burger, already half-eaten. "You haven't even asked me what I am yet!" </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"What are you?" he asks mechanically. It doesn't matter anyway, not if he gets to die. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I'm an Amazon. We're conceived, born, trained, and then sent to kill our fathers in a matter of days. You got a stay of execution because, well, I hear the world was ending. But here we are in this dinky little diner anyway, and I'm still going to kill you."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Good." Emma goes still, watching for a trap, a signal, some kind of explanation for his behavior. She was trained well, Dean approves. He says, "I was never supposed to outlive my brother and- And I'm glad that it's family that finally ganks me."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"You don't even know if I'm telling the truth!" she hisses. Her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth as if startled by her own anger and starts to bite at her fingers again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean shrugs. "Who would </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>to be related to me? I kind of hope you are, though. Be nice to have a kid, to get to meet her. To have </span>
  <em>
    <span>someone </span>
  </em>
  <span>finally get revenge on all the Winchesters I've gotten killed."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"You are just incredibly fucked up, do you know that?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Well, </span>
  <em>
    <span>yeah</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Hell will do that to you. Makes your job easy, don't it?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Too easy," she says, going back to her food. "What happened to you?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He could just not answer. Scoff or smirk and say something about how becoming a dad had changed him about how old he's getting (thirty-two is a perfectly acceptable age but </span>
  <em>
    <span>man</span>
  </em>
  <span> did he ever not expect to reach it). He could brush her off. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, he reaches into his pocket and chucks the muddy fidget spinner from Hell onto the table where it seems to think about coming apart on impact before it settles, just as stuck as ever. "That smells like blood," Emma says wonderingly. "What is it?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"The rings of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." It comes out on a sigh, slow and forlorn. He stopped the apocalypse and all he has to show for it is a fresh grave and a couple of ugly rings that he intends to bury the second he finds an acceptable stretch of dirt. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Emma's jaw works like she's chewing on the words- her plate is empty now, her double decker burger finished in half the time it would've taken even Dean. "Four Horsemen… oh! I know that one! The Judeo-Christian end of the world, right? it always seems so strange that </span>
  <em>
    <span>those</span>
  </em>
  <span> were the gods Christians decided to set apart from the rest."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Gods?" Dean asks, momentarily actually curious. "What, you mean like Kali and Gab- and the Trickster?" </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"You know, there is a </span>
  <em>
    <span>real</span>
  </em>
  <span> Trickster. Gods are-" she breaks off and starts playing with her fingers, very obviously trying not to start biting at them again. Dean wonders if it's the Amazon equivalent to sucking your thumb. “Gods are constructs created by human belief. They don’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>need </span>
  </em>
  <span>worship to survive anymore, but it helps. The Judeo-Christian God is different, though. The Amazons told me that he is a construct of the universe, a physical form to pour its desire for order into, just like there’s a physical form for all its chaos. Limos, Ina, Ares, Osiris, there are so many other names for your Horsemen. There are so many happier things for Christianity to have chosen from. There are so many other ways to end the world.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Emma trails off and her brow furrows. She picks up the key that the rings make and slips one of them on her thumb, idly spinning it. Death’s ring, the one with the least of Dean’s blood on it. Or the most, depending on how you looked at it. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“How else could it have ended?” Dean asks after a long stretch of silence. He realizes he’s barely touched his pie and takes a bite of it, savoring the cherry. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“They could’ve simply let the wheel turn, let the Fenris-wolf eat the moon and his brother, the sun. They could’ve let the world end in ice, or let the turtle stop moving, but instead, the angels woke up and chose brother on brother violence.” She’s so frustrated, so annoyed by the gods she speaks of, but the expression on her face is one that Dean’s own muscles know the shape of intimately. It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>expression on another person’s face and Dean is just starting to think he might like the idea of children, </span>
  <em>
    <span>eventually</span>
  </em>
  <span>, when her attention shifts. She frowns down at her hand and mutters something irritable before she bites at her finger- </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Bites at the rings-</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean lunges across the table almost faster than he knows he can move, but there is a shockwave like the absence of </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span> that pushes him back for half a second. When he can orient himself again, Emma is </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Her plate sits empty and the waitress comes around a moment later, completely unruffled by the lack of a second customer as if there had never been one. She asks if Dean would like the check, if he’d like another burger. In the booth across from him, one of the men has finally begun recording and his calming baritone washes over Dean, begging him to listen, to relax, to forget all about the daughter he’s not even sure he has. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“...and good night, Nightvale. Good night.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean asks for the check and a box. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Return of the Child Emperor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Get it? Because Sam's not a boy so he can't be king? Okay, I'll sit down now.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>The world ended three months ago. Not the whole thing, but definitely Dean's little part of it. Sam is gone, his body and soul trapped some place too deep and too dark and too old for a demon deal to reach it and Dean is... well, he’s not dealing, but he’s still alive at least. That's all he's got for now. </p><p> </p><p>He very carefully does not ever think of Emma.</p><p> </p><p>When Sam shows up at his motel room exactly three months and three days after The End, Dean is understandably pissed. His first instinct is to beat the thing wearing his brother's skin to a bloody pulp. It's luck, really, and hard earned skill that saves Sam from his initial furious rush and once he's momentarily knocked off track, Sam convinces him to run the same gamut of supernatural tests on him that Bobby had done when Dean clawed his way out of his own grave.</p><p> </p><p>Only when Dean is satisfied with the results does he finally break down. He's not sure if it's relief or anger or delayed grief shaking through him, but his knees give out and his eyes well up and he maybe blacks out for a few minutes. When he comes to again, he and Sam are curled on the floor and Sam is sobbing so hard that Dean wonders if he's breathing. He ignores the tears burning tracks down his own face and picks the both of them up, Sam's lanky frame loose-jointed and wobbly as Dean guides them over to the bed. </p><p> </p><p>It's a single- Dean can't bear the sight of a second bed anymore. Sam sits down heavily, finally calmed into breathing semi-regularly, but he doesn't let go of Dean's shirt. His fists are balled up stubbornly in the hem of his henley the same way Sam has been doing since he was an infant, though his hands are bigger and stronger and scarred now. All he says is, "Time moves differently in Hell," but it's enough. </p><p> </p><p>Dean's chest nearly caves in. How long had Sam been gone from his perspective? He had purposefully not thought about the implications of sending his brother to the Cage because he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from doing something incredibly stupid and world-breaking to save him, but now... God, why hadn't he <em> tried </em>? </p><p> </p><p>"Because you know how much it could've broken if you did," Sam says quietly, "and I asked you not to. You never really say no to me, Dean."</p><p> </p><p>"That's why you're such a brat now," Dean says shakily. He <em> knows </em>he only thought that. He adds, "Bitch."</p><p> </p><p>"I'm sorry. I can... hear things now. Too much. Demon blood only gave me a temporary power up, but angelic grace..." he trails off and shakes his head. In a small voice he adds, "This might just be me now."</p><p> </p><p>He could play this off. He could make a joke and laugh and ignore it until he and Sam both explode, but it won’t be very productive. Shit, now that Sam's apparently a mind reader, he's gonna have to rethink his repression methods. Instead of that ugly, monumental task, Dean thinks about the whispers of the semi-legendary Boy King when he was in Hell, how uneasy the demons were back then. He thinks about the dark look in John's eyes when he said Dean might have to do something awful to the brother he had raised. And then Dean thinks about a chubby three-year-old Sammy crying in his arms after a nightmare, telling him that the people eater was gonna get Tommy. </p><p> </p><p>Dean has probably known that his brother is different for a very, very long time and now, without John whispering in his ear, he finds that he just really <em> doesn't care </em>. Sammy is Sammy, serial killer obsession and shaggy hair and demon blood and all. All he says is, "If you can kill demons one handed without going all Carrie on me, I don't really care."</p><p> </p><p>Sam stares at him with that same intense look that Cas- </p><p> </p><p>Dean shakes his head and claps his brother on the shoulder, pulling him up and into another, softer hug. "Take a shower," he says. "It'll convince you you're alive. Trust me."</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Now that Sam is back and super-powered, Dean just sleeping through his nightmares really isn't enough anymore. His nightmares set off Sam's or compound them or look so similar to what Sam would dream about that he finds himself stuck in Dean's head, screaming them both awake every night. They can't keep going like this and Dean knows it, but he can't figure out what to do about it. Drinking himself into a coma or using magic to repress dreams is only going to hurt them in the long run, but that's unfortunately the extent of Dean's coping skills. What can he say? He hadn't really seen a reason to build healthy habits when he was so sure he would be dead by thirty. </p><p> </p><p>Sam reaches out to grab his wrist across the shitty card table in their motel room. His fingers are warm and clammy. Sam speaks less now, communicates with touch as often as possible. He was never a talkative kid, but these days he’s nearly mute, blank eyed and shaky around the edges. They both pretend that Dean doesn't notice the new tremor in Sam's hands and he smiles thinly. The touch says '<em> we will make it through this. We have no choice. </em>'</p><p> </p><p>He's right. They're Winchesters, they're the last Winchesters, there is nothing that can take them on. </p><p> </p><p>They're SamandDean. Nothing can separate them, not Death or time or space. </p><p> </p><p>Sam's eyes brighten and focus- whatever he has seen in Dean's mind comforts him where he had meant to comfort Dean. "You should try praying," he says unexpectedly, voice creaking with disuse. "It won't work if it's not you that's praying."</p><p> </p><p>Dean squints. "What, can you tune into Angel Radio now?"</p><p> </p><p>"I haven't changed that much, Dean. I just know that you miss- uh, that if we ever needed Cas, it has to be you that calls him."</p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, well, we don't need Cas, we need-" Dean stops cold, his eyes going wide. "Shit. We need to call Bobby."</p><p> </p><p>"Dean, I'm pretty sure there's no lore for whatever happened to me-"</p><p> </p><p>"He thinks you're dead, Sammy."</p><p> </p><p>All Sam says is "Oh," but that's enough. Dean gets it. </p><p> </p><p>Being in Hell means that you never forget you're dead. You don't get the luxury of forgetting that your life is over and your chance to atone for your sins is gone, the demons make sure of that. They make it <em> easy </em>, even, to accept that this is your eternity. And you do, because what else is there? </p><p> </p><p>So Dean <em> gets it </em> . Even sitting right here beside Dean, Sam has forgotten that he is alive again. He is <em> happy </em>and certain that this is an illusion and why wouldn't it be? Dean knows how that sense of unreality will linger, will make everything seem just slightly wrong, taste like ash and ambrosia at once until something more fucked than even the demons could think up happens. And it will, because that's their life. </p><p> </p><p>Still, Dean has experience with this and Sammy is his litter brother; he will do everything he can to steer him through the rough days ahead. He adds, just in case Sam can only read his articulated surface thoughts, that neither of them deserved this and Dean will do what he can to spare his brother. </p><p> </p><p>One of them should get to be happy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. A Bobby and a Pair of Winchesters Buy a Bar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Bobby is just as happy and suspicious at Sam’s resurrection as he was at Dean’s. He has the wherewithal to ask the important questions once he’s done with the hugging and yelling, though. He moves much faster than Dean, who’s still in the hugging phase. Bobby hands them both glasses of the good whiskey and looks Sam straight in his eyes, asking, “Do you know how it happened?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean is indescribably surprised when his brother nods. He doesn’t remember much of his own resurrection, just dying and the freezing cold of Hell and the empty relief of getting off the rack and then the briefest comfortable warmth. The one thing he most wants to remember about his decades in Hell is the one thing that he can never remember. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean realizes he’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>jealous</span>
  </em>
  <span> of Sam even without knowing his brother’s story yet. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam cradles his glass like it’s actually fragile and not sippy-cup grade plastic, staring into it like the whiskey knows something they don’t. “Cage is a… misnomer. It’s more like a temple, like something out of Babylon. Lucifer, he- I mean, I was there for a long time and he likes to brag, so he showed me around. The Cage is like a- a pocket dimension, so it’s huge, but empty. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> empty. It </span>
  <em>
    <span>was</span>
  </em>
  <span> secure.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“‘Was’?” Bobby asks. He and Dean are thinking the same thing. If it’s unstable, maybe they really haven’t gotten rid of their Lucifer problem. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam coughs and it sounds like a laugh, but his eyes are watering too. The tremor in his hands is back. He says. “He’s been scratching at the walls forever. There’s this little spot where it’s thin, you know, near the hinges of the door. Lucifer and Michael were paying attention to Adam, so I went to go poke at it, just for something to do. She was already standing there, waiting for me. She pulled me out like it was nothing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I went… Somewhere else after that.  Not Heaven, but not Earth either. Limbo. I was there for… well, I couldn’t really tell. Time didn’t pass right. It was just the present, the moment. Emma said it was to heal me, that I was too damaged to go back home immediately. She said it would be like giving you a broken toy.” Sam finally looks up at Dean, his wide eyes watering. “She looked like you, Dean.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean shudders. No, there’s no way. Emma was an idea, the briefest flicker of hope, and she is </span>
  <em>
    <span>gone</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He’d gotten Sam back and that’s his one free miraculous thing, so there’s no point in hoping his brother is right. This isn’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>Return of the King</span>
  </em>
  <span>, this isn’t some long epilogue where he gets what he wants. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Anyway, when was the last time Dean had known what he wanted? </span>
  <em>
    <span>I mean it, Dean, what would you rather have: peace or freedom?</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam is watching him intently, his eyes shifting restlessly between brown and green in the dim light of Bobby’s house. “Dean,” he says quietly, “who’s Emma?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bobby is eyeing him quietly too, holding judgment until he gets more of the story. Dean doesn’t know if he wants to tell it. He says, “After- I was headed to Ben and Lisa like I promised I would and I stopped to get gas and there was this girl standing there. She said she was looking for me, that her mom knew me, that it was her job to kill me. Apparently, Amazons grow like weeds, get indoctrinated, and get sent out into the world to kill their fathers as initiation rites.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Their </span>
  <em>
    <span>fathers</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Sam’s already put it together, but he wants confirmation, needs it. This might be the thing that’s crazy enough to convince him that he’s alive. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I got low, I got sloppy,” Dean says, shrugging. “Emma and I had a nice little chat in a diner involving the Key- even the Amazons knew what we were doing, so they let me live a little longer than normal to see if we could. And then we </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span>, so they sent their little baby assassin out for me, except she really was a baby, so she bit the Key like a damn teething ring and… here we are. No Emma, no rings, and no story to tell because </span>
  <em>
    <span>nothing happened</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“That’s a whole lot more than nothing, boy!” Bobby says. “That was months ago, why didn’t you call me?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t die and there were no monsters to hunt. I just finished my pie and moved on.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Bobby does that thing where he huffs and looks at Dean like he’s never seen someone stupider and says, “You </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> how far I’d go to help you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“She tried to kill me, Bobby!” Dean says, standing up so fast that his forgotten whiskey sloshes out over his hand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“And you took her to dinner, because you wanted to see her fed. You really want me to believe you didn’t try to find her? Even just to make sure she was dead?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I did!” Dean shouts. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Too loud, too much, bring it down</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He says more quietly, “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span>. There’s no evidence she ever even existed. I was having the worst night after the worst day in the history of mankind and I probably just hallucinated, okay? It’s fine. I’m fine.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The words crowding behind his teeth are: </span>
  <em>
    <span>I tried to call Cas after she disappeared, I tried to ask him if she was real, I tried to get something out of him and he never even answered. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Of course he hadn’t called Bobby because why would he give someone else the chance to ignore him? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Once again, Sam’s eyes are too knowing and Dean remembers too late what his brother can do now. Sam says, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Whoever</span>
  </em>
  <span> pulled me out of the Cage, she put me back together perfectly and got nothing out of it. She was kind." Sam stares him down for a moment, giving Dean time to marinate in it before moving on. "I was thinking that since you never actually made it back to Lisa, </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> could build something together, something steady. Something for hunters.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“The Roadhouse is gone. We could- we could rebuild, maybe,” Dean says, grasping onto the idea like a lifeline. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“In Kansas,” Sam adds. His eyes are watery and he looks way too close to sentimental. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hey this is not the time for a chick flick moment.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“This is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>best time</span>
  </em>
  <span> for a chick flick moment!”</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>Building a bar takes time and money, one of which they have in abundance and the other which they are more than capable of conning their way into plenty of. Well, they’re more than capable of conning enough to eat and drive and stay in their motel rooms, but a whole building? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They brainstorm for a while, looking for the perfect spot and trying to figure out what goes into owning a building and then, memorably, trying to figure out if they’re even legally </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Their hunts are more for distraction than anything else now. Nothing feels heavy anymore, nothing feels life threatening after everything they’ve been through in the last few years. After all, what’s a ghost when you've seen the devil wearing your brother’s face?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Charlie Bradbury blows into their lives like a hurricane. After they manage to free the fairy that was haunting her LARPing kingdom, she sticks around like an annoying little sister. Sam loves her because she’s like a smart Dean and Dean loves her because they’re the same person, so the sibling bond that grows between the three of them is really the only natural conclusion. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When she finds out about the bar they want to open, she’s all over it. Turns out, Charlie’s passion is hacking her way into places she shouldn’t be and she’s more than willing to help them. She makes sure they’re legally alive, clears them of their charges, and even hands them a shiny set of unlimited credit cards that she promises will never run out of money. “Name a drink after me,” she says. “Something with scotch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Beam Me Up Scotchy,” Dean says without missing a beat.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I like the way you think!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She emails them a few weeks later with a list of properties a few miles outside of Paola, Kansas. They pick the one furthest out, equidistant to Paola and Lawrence. It’s roomy and just off a highway that’s begging for a new dive bar. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean falls in love the second he sees it in person, though he doesn’t want to admit it. Calling it a fixer upper is putting it nicely, but Dean throws himself into the remodeling with the same rigor he did in rebuilding Baby years ago. It’s good for him, it's cathartic, and the amount of times he finds himself up at 3am with a hammer in his hands is ungodly and continues to go unmentioned. It’s a constructive outlet for all the anger and the fear he can still feel vibrating through him and all hours. It’s like his body still thinks the world is ending. Hell, Dean almost believes it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam helps where he can, but he mostly focuses on figuring out how to run a business. He hasn’t stayed in one place for longer than a week in years and the thought of </span>
  <em>
    <span>living </span>
  </em>
  <span>here is strange. It doesn’t fit right in his head and Sam is on the fence about whether he really </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants</span>
  </em>
  <span> to stay in one place anymore anyway. How many years has he been traveling? What will it be like to finally have consequences for their actions? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He almost wants to call their bar that, name it </span>
  <em>
    <span>Consequence</span>
  </em>
  <span>, but that doesn’t feel right. It sounds too much like they are suffering when, for the first time in years, they're </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean's remodeling the bathrooms, has been since midnight, and the speakers he installed three days ago are shaking the floor under Sam's feet. It's one of the few songs they both agree on wholeheartedly- Dean has a playlist of them for nights like this so Sam doesn't bitch at him for waking him up with the ungodly noise he's making. It echoes up to him, too joyful for 2am and too familiar for Sam not to sing along. "</span>
  <em>
    <span>Carry on! You will always remember. Carry on! Nothing equals this madness, set your sails for winds of fortune! Surely heaven waits for you!</span>
  </em>
  <span>"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks. He digs out their business license application from the pile of papers on his desk and writes, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wayward Sun Bar</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Santa Kelly, Mater Dei, Ora Pro Nobis Ammus</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Saint Kelly, Mother of God, protect us lovers...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>When Castiel put his hands on Sam and Dean Winchester's chests, he had no plan. Warding a human against the sight of angels was unheard of, blasphemous to even think of because hiding a human from angels was like hiding from the sight of the Lord. Why would you do that, angel, if not to sin?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Why </span>
  <em>
    <span>did</span>
  </em>
  <span> Castiel do it?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Enochain warding in the form Castiel was about to make was nearly nonexistent. Those humans who were actively enemies of Heaven rarely had the knowledge necessary to create anything and what little they did was often full of holes. Castiel needed something foolproof, something that would hide his boys from even archangels. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So he raised his hands confidently and spoke with conviction and closed his eyes to avoid looking Dean in the face because if he did- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel was a good soldier, but not necessarily a powerful angel. He sung in the chorus, as Dean would say. The solos were for celestial beings higher up the totem pole than him and he had never once chafed at that. Castiel had always been loyal. Until now, until Dean dragged him into the insular world of the Winchesters. It was warm there and fiercely, violently loving. Castiel was drawn in like Odysseus by the sirens and he had been made for dashing himself against the rocks, over and over again like a battering ram, a hammer, daddy's blunt object. He had been made for loving the Winchesters. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He told himself that that was the only reason he rebelled. Disobedience was not in his makeup, he knew that. Touching Dean's soul left its mark on Castiel's grace and this was it. His wavelength had changed, gone as vibrant and wild as the soul that had done it to him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This strangeness was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> familiar. The instinct to hide it from Heaven was just common sense, just self preservation. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What he ended up carving into their ribs were prayers molded into the shape of his true name. Castiel is pronounceable by human tongues but his </span>
  <em>
    <span>name</span>
  </em>
  <span> is so sacred that no angel can look directly at it. He hoped it would be enough to hide them for the time being. He hoped no one ever looked too closely at Sam's ribs, lest they found Castiel’s quiets hopes for the young man's future ease. He prayed no one looked close enough at Dean's ribs to see the near-blasphemous praise carved there, the love. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He carved the truth into Dean's ribs and then hid it from himself, too. Just like a human, Castiel was uncomfortable with the sight of his own bleeding heart sitting there, divorced from his chest. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He should've known then, maybe. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That fear that he felt was real and rooted much deeper than his conscious memory. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel remembered Naomi. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The sort of pain her ancient, secret white room inflicts on an angel stays with them, some invisible scar on their grace for all eternity. Castiel has many scars. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he went back to Heaven, he found himself strangely cut off from his siblings. Heaven, the places outside of the pocket dimensions human souls create for themselves, is little more than a cloud of functionally shared grace, a collective of millions of angels that moves as one. When Castiel went back, he found himself still alone in his head, tuning in and out of 'Angel Radio' when he pleased. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hadn't meant to start a civil war, he </span>
  <em>
    <span>hadn't</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It was just that Raphael was so loud when he spoke in their shared consciousness that Castiel had to lean back and listen with something other than his grace to think clearly. He heard entirely too much then, too much about power vacuums and jealousy and how undeserving Michael was of his power. Of his command. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Raphael wanted much more than to see their wayward Father's Plan come to fruition. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So Castiel fought back. It wasn't about the Winchesters anymore- without Sam or Michael, Dean was useless and therefore safe- but it seemed right to want to stop him. It was what Dean would do. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The problem was that Castiel was a seraph now, sure, but nothing can stand against an archangel except the Thrones, who've been dead for centuries (except Metatron who's been silent for so long that he is assumed dead as well). And Castiel, well he had no chance of becoming a Throne because who had seen the face of God since He left? Who could worship Him like that again? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Certainly not Castiel. He'd seen too much, done too much, had too much grace on his hands. He had to defeat Raphael a different way. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was turning over rocks best left alone when Naomi found him. She dragged him off to a part of Heaven older than even the Garden and- </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn't remember the rest. Whatever it was that Naomi did, she did it well, but Castiel was built different. His base code wasn't anything Naomi was used to and while her patch jobs had worked on him before, this was different. She was trying to take </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dean</span>
  </em>
  <span> away from him and that would not stand. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Naomi sent him away from Heaven, away from his "silly little war". She said there were more important things to tend to. She gave him a name: Kelly Kline. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Kelly was average. She'd graduated from Stanford the year after Sam and had been the secretary for Senator Boxer for a year now. She was also very pregnant and very quiet about who the father was. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel, when he cornered her in her apartment one night, found that she simply didn't know. It wasn't like she was a virgin, she'd said, but still, it had been way too long since she'd shared her bed with a man for this to make sense, for this to be natural. The baby was hers and she was keeping it, but she was also pretty sure it was no one else's. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Naomi had said Kelly Kline was carrying a nephilim and enough power was bleeding off her for that to seem true, but it didn't feel like grace. It didn't feel like anything Castiel knew, just pure and clean and new. Kelly had said she would name her baby Jack and just like that, Castiel remembered he didn't like taking orders anymore. Who was Naomi to Castiel when he had stood against Michael and Lucifer and Dean? </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Looking back, that's probably when Dean started praying to him again. It was the first time he heard, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Cas? Cas, can you hear me? Please come home.</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel didn't go home. Home was currently the mouth of some shark and running to Dean Winchester's little world felt too much like hiding. He kept protecting Kelly from Naomi, who was singularly focused on them despite the war still raging in Heaven. He taught her Enochian warding for when he couldn't be there, for the times he left to help lead his troops, taught her about the supernatural world she hadn't known about, gave her a shoulder to lean on when she felt like she couldn't talk to her parents. He helped her when she quit her job after the third time a demon wandered into her workplace, helped her find a sturdy car when the angels wrecked her old one, helped her deliver her baby in a field somewhere in Oregon. They became friends. Castiel found he liked having friends. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He found that he liked Jack even more. The baby was intelligent, endearing, and growing so fast that Castiel's head was spinning. He was talking within hours of his birth and clearly able to understand them as well as any adult. Kelly was understandably terrified. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Dean was still there in the back of his mind, praying to him every night for all those months, </span>
  <em>
    <span>dreaming</span>
  </em>
  <span> of him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then, finally, the thing that broke down all of his resolve: </span>
  <em>
    <span>Last year, you asked me if I wanted peace or freedom and then you left before I could give you an answer- dick move, by the way. There's a third option, I just... I need you to come home so I can tell you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And it was time, he figured. Castiel missed the Winchester boys, He missed Dean and the hearthfire warmth of his soul. And anyway, who could be better vanguards against the forces of Heaven than San and Dean Winchester? They could keep Kelly and Jack so much safer than Castiel could. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was just one stop he wanted to make first.</span>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <span>"That's definitely gonna hurt," the woman says. She looks over Castiel and he knows what she sees. A man clearly built for hard work, tallish, handsome in an average way, like he could be a showstopper if he put any effort in but he doesn't and it shows. Unnervingly bright eyes set in a face that could be thirty or forty or fifty. Miles of unblemished skin. "Are you sure you want to do this?" she asks again for good measure. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Her name is Melanie. She's an incredibly talented tattoo artist wasting her talent at a hole-in-the-wall parlor in Lebanon. Castiel stumbled across her a month ago and the idea of working with her has been eating at him since. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"The pain will not be an issue," he says. This is true and also an issue in and of itself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie shrugs and gives him a wide grin that promises she will not be kind. "Let's do this, then. Turn around, let me place the stencil and then you can decide if you like the placement."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Cas turns without comment. He's already shirtless and the artificial cold of the parlor means little to him. She places the stencil and Cas says he trusts her judgment to get around looking in the mirror at it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They begin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie was right, it </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> hurt, but Castiel only recognizes it distantly. That distance is the problem, it’s what brought him here today to this woman, to this table, to this needle with its bright green ink. He is so disconnected from his body and he's </span>
  <em>
    <span>tired </span>
  </em>
  <span>of it. It's </span>
  <em>
    <span>his</span>
  </em>
  <span> body now, remade just for him, empty of any consciousness that isn't his. This is Castiel’s body and he wants it to feel like that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It's just so difficult for angels, for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him </span>
  </em>
  <span>because he's sure he's the only angel who's cared quite like this. By his very nature, Castiel is as ephemeral as he is eternal, completely unable to be truly tied down. This body is so achingly human and it reacts as such and Castiel generally goes along with those reactions because why would he not? The body likes to breathe, so he breathes often. It flinches from pain and doesn't like to be underwater and turns towards the sun. Castiel registers these things, understands them, but he doesn't </span>
  <em>
    <span>feel </span>
  </em>
  <span>them. The body is the body and Castiel, by nature, is separate from that. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But he's not anymore. This body exists because of him, it exists </span>
  <em>
    <span>for </span>
  </em>
  <span>him, it is his in a way that very few things are. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Well, in a way that only Dean is. Castiel had </span>
  <em>
    <span>rebuilt </span>
  </em>
  <span>Dean, pulled his every atom back into existence, coaxed his soul back into a shape that would fit into something physical again, sharpened all those edges that John Winchester had worked so hard to dull. This vessel's hand had given the entry wound of Dean's soul shape and form. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>This </span>
  <em>
    <span>body, Castiel's</span>
  </em>
  <span> body.</span>
  <em>
    <span> His body</span>
  </em>
  <span>. His hand left that mark, his eyes had watched over Dean, his wings and his feet and the strength in his arms had pulled him to Dean and followed Dean and cradled Dean. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In its own way, Dean's soul had given him shape and form, too. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because of Dean, Castiel is no longer just a wavelength of celestial intent. He is himself, he is singular. Because he is himself, Castiel is- well, the only word he can ever think of is 'lover', but even that isn't quite right. Castiel calls himself a lover the same way he used to call himself a soldier, or the way someone might call some poor beast a maneater, or the way the Egyptians would whisper the name of Sekhmet because they could not worship Hathor without giving her darker side her due. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel is a lover forged in a time when love was synonymous with war.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The quiet buzzing of the tattoo gun clicks off eventually, pulling Castiel from his reverie. He looks over his shoulder in confusion- he knows she can’t be done yet. She smiles knowingly at him, seemingly pleased by his lack of reaction thus far. “Quick break, she says. “I have an issue with the tendons in my hands, so I can only grip things for so long, you know? I’ll just give myself a few minutes and then we can get back into it.”</span>
  <span></span>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <span>Castiel can see the deficiency if he looks hard enough, a few strands of tendons too weak and ill-formed to hold the well developed muscles of the woman’s hands properly. It’s an easy fix really, and the least he can do for her outside of paying her actual money for the gift she is giving him. He takes the brief respite she has given him to fully stretch out on her table, subtly stretching his back muscles to try and guess how far she has gotten into his intricate design. Halfway, he thinks, another hour or so. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When this is done, Castiel will go back to his hunt. He’ll bundle up Kelly and Jack and send them to Sam and Dean for safe keeping while he finally ends this. Raphael and Naomi have no idea how short their time is. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Once they're gone, Heaven will fall in line. Angels like taking orders and Castiel has found he is good at giving them. He will help then usher in, a new age, a kinder one. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And then he’ll go back to Dean. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That’s later, though. Right now, he looks over at the young woman quietly massaging her hand with a faraway look on her face. “Thank you for this,” he says. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“No problem, man! It’s literally my job, but I also love this. I love giving people art.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It pains you,” Castiel says. “I know pain is nothing to you, but it shouldn’t be. You should take more breaks.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>That startles a laugh out of her. “You sound like my wife! That probably means you’re right too, but that’s not the point here. Don’t thank me until you see the finished product!”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Castiel closes his eyes and pillows his head on his arms. “I am thanking you for your time, for your skill, for your willingness to take on a client who clearly knew nothing about what he was signing up for. Thank you for simply existing as you do, Melanie.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She breathes out a shaky gasp that was maybe meant to be a laugh. Her soul quivers in discomfort at the genuine gratitude and Castiel wants to reach out with his grace to soothe her. He never cared like this before, he thinks. “I met a man a year ago,” he adds, glad that his eyes are closed so he doesn’t have to worry about his eyes unsettling her further. “He taught me how important just existing can be. How… gratifying it is to be loved just for existing. I’ve been trying to extend that lesson to the rest of humanity.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They are silent for a few moments before Castiel hears Melanie change out the inks in her tattoo gun and reposition her chair. “I hope he knows how much you love him,” she says. Castiel says nothing and she lays a hand on his shoulder, waiting patiently until he opens his eyes. Her round face is serious and drawn, her dark eyes darting between his, looking for something. “You should tell him. No matter what happens, at least you would have told him. And I can promise you, Castiel, you will </span>
  <em>
    <span>never </span>
  </em>
  <span>be as happy as when you say it out loud.” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then buzzing starts again and they don’t speak again until Melanie is done. Castiel doesn’t flinch once. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. This is Not Harmless, You Not Breathing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title taken from Richard Siken's The Dislocated Room</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first time Sam says it, it's just a little thing in passing. Dean is telling a story about them as kids and Sam corrects him: 'they', not 'he'. Dean corrects himself without a thought, assuming that Sam remembers it with other people, not just them. He's wrong, but it isn't a discussion Sam wants to have in front of some baby hunter who's just made it to the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wayward Sun </span>
  </em>
  <span>for the first time. There won't </span>
  <em>
    <span>be </span>
  </em>
  <span>a perfect time for this particular conversation, but there will be a better one. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It comes a few weeks later, when Dean is jokingly telling him to be a man while they're unclogging the sink behind the bar one night. Well, it's really morning and the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wayward Sun </span>
  </em>
  <span>has been closed for over an hour now, but Dean wanted to get the maintenance done before they went upstairs to pass out. He said neither of them would want to do it in the morning and he was right, so Sam agreed to help. That was before they'd had to disassemble the sink to get to a clog in the u-bend and Sam is gracefully bowing out now. No way is he sticking his hand down there. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"Oh, come on, Sammy, be a man."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm not one!" </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean laughs. "No, you're right, Samantha, you're not."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"I'm not a woman either, Dean, I'm-" he breaks off and runs a hand through his hair. He hadn't known how he wanted this to go when it started and now he's wondering if he wants it to go at all. "I'm neither," he finishes quietly. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean's head finally comes out from under the sink. "Huh?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He's got his brother's undivided attention now and he suppresses the urge to flinch. Dean's attention is so hard to get but once you have it, it's like a laser focused down on you, just waiting for some actionable information, waiting for new food for a starving brain. Now, with Sam's extra sense, he can also see how Dean's live wire mind just goes quiet, completely still and completely focused. Sam talks to fill the silence, a desperate ramble in what may as well be a foreign language. "Gender isn't binary, Dean, like it's not just male and female. That’s the easy, accepted way to think about it, but not everyone fits into one box or the other. Gender is more accurately seen as a spectrum and some people fall along it somewhere between one extreme and the other. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m</span>
  </em>
  <span> somewhere in the middle."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean gives him a skeptical look and grabs the piece of pipe he was working on under the sink, disconnects it from the rest so he can start cleaning it and maintain eye contact. "Not to be gross or anything, but I changed your diapers, man. I taught you that pants aren't optional, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>you only have one set of parts. I mean, unless the demon blood had some fun side effects you didn't mention-"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"No!" Sam says. "Jesus, that's not, uh. That's </span>
  <em>
    <span>sex </span>
  </em>
  <span>you're thinking of, gender is something completely serparate."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>"</span>
  <em>
    <span>Okay</span>
  </em>
  <span>..." Dean says. "So explain it to me. What are you exactly, if you're not a man or a woman?"</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam chews on that. He knows what he would say to the Gender Studies classes he used to TA for, but it wouldn't be of much use to Dean. His brother isn’t stupid, but he just doesn’t have the foundation that Sam’s students had and, despite him already deciding to make an effort for Sam, he also didn't care until approximately two minutes ago. He says, "The actual term for it is non-binary and my pronouns are 'he' or 'they' instead of just 'he'. And yes, 'they' can be used as a singular pronoun, it can't be bad grammar if language is constantly evolving with our use of it," he adds. There had been plenty of nasty students who brought their prejudice into his study sessions and the urge to defend his pronouns is deeply ingrained. He drags himself back to his original point. "Think of it like this: you know how you used to wear Dad's old jacket even though it didn't fit? Too big in the shoulders, too long, and not even really something you'd pick for yourself, but you still wore it because it was expected and it was easy and it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost </span>
  </em>
  <span>right. The things that were wrong were so small that you could ignore it but sometimes it was the only thing you could think about. That's what performing masculinity is for me- a sometimes very uncomfortable life of almosts."</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean's hands had stopped moving halfway through Sam's speech, cleaning solution and bar gunk dripping onto his jeans. The gears are turning in his head but there are teeth missing, things Dean just doesn’t know that he needs to if he wants to fully understand. And he does, Sam can see it, but he doesn’t know how to ask. Sam pushes himself off the floor to leave his brother to his work, already planning. “It’s just the little things, Dean. ‘They’ instead of ‘he’, that’s all. I have books, too, if you wanted to learn more. I mean, you know I’ve always got books, so, yeah. If you want them.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“I do,” Dean says abruptly. “I’ll read your stupid little books. If this is important to you, I, uh, I want to know more.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam smiles and then leaves. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>\_/</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The next morning, he brings the books. It’s only two, but they’re Sam’s favorites: Leslie Feinburg’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stone Butch Blues</span>
  </em>
  <span> in all its revolutionary glory and Richard Siken’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Crush</span>
  </em>
  <span> with all its desperate, panicky ruminations about the permanence of your own body. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stone Butch Blues</span>
  </em>
  <span> had been part of the curriculum for his classes, but </span>
  <em>
    <span>Crush</span>
  </em>
  <span>… Brady, or the demon that wore Brady’s face had given it to him a few days before Dean had shown up saying that it would ‘clear some things up.’ Sam’s still not sure what Brady was saying to him- that Sam didn’t fit in his own body, that he was made to hurt and hurt others, that love for him was a violence? He doesn’t know, but he does understand, which are two very different things that he’s content let exist separately. He thinks Dean will understand too, much better than he ever did. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Forget the dragon, leave the gun on the table. This has nothing to do with happiness.’ </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He hands them to Dean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>Crush </span>
  </em>
  <span>on top. “You should probably start with this one,” he says. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Dean snorts and reaches out, thumbing through the tiny paperback, taking note of the short, sharp way the poems are arranged. “What,” he says, rough with sleep, “you think I can’t read big boy books?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“You finished </span>
  <em>
    <span>Slaughterhouse V</span>
  </em>
  <span> in no time flat, Dean. It’s not that you can’t, I just think this one will… I think it will be a better start. Something you actually resonate with before you get into the gender of it all.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam puts the other book on Dean’s cluttered bedside table and Dean eyes the one in his hand like it might bite. “It’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>poetry</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” he says. “What does this have to do with anything?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“It’s about-” Sam says and then he stops. What is it about? “Have you ever felt like your hands aren’t yours, or- or like they </span>
  <em>
    <span>were</span>
  </em>
  <span> but the things you’ve done with them makes you wish they weren’t? Read the book, Dean.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And Dean doesn’t, at first. It takes him days of glancing at it, of reading a word or two and then getting distracted, sitting down with every intention of focusing and then moving on to something else before he finally has a moment where his mind settles for long enough for him to actually read a poem from beginning to end. He’s hooked after that, reading and reading and </span>
  <em>
    <span>reading</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He doesn’t actually come out of his room for two days; Sam has to man the </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wayward Sun </span>
  </em>
  <span>by himself. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mostly by himself. Eileen comes when he calls. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s so strange, liking someone again. He feels like he hasn’t even looked at a woman since Sarah all those years ago, but even then he hadn’t really considered a relationship with her. His interest in Sarah had been as much about whether or not he </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>still like someone as it was a genuine connection. He was playacting back then, trying to convince Dean and himself that he was still okay, that he was still Sam. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>So much of his life is about convincing himself that he is himself. Even now as he nervously asks Eileen if she’d like to go out with him (“Just a lunch date, nothing serious if you don’t want it to be. Unless you do want it to be! I-”), he’s twirling a paring knife in his hands, the lemons he was slicing for the drinks he’s trying out on their menu forgotten on the cutting board.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span> Dean had taught him knife tricks when they were young because what else do a couple of kids with too many weapons and not enough supervision do? Sam wasn’t good at them at first. His teachers often asked about the cuts on his hands with that same, cultivated look of concern on their faces, sticking their noses where they didn’t belong. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Dean</span>
  </em>
  <span> wasn’t the Winchester they should have been suspicious of. Their questions never mattered anyway because the scars healed and he got better at the knife tricks and John just turned into even more of a drunk as time passed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>All that practice</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Sam thinks, hiding a wince</span>
  <em>
    <span>, and I’m still cutting up my fingers. </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It hurts and he feels the blood well up on his thumb and he remembers that, yes, these are his hands. These are </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>hurts, that's </span>
  <em>
    <span>his </span>
  </em>
  <span>blood beading on his thumb. This is </span>
  <em>
    <span>Sam's skin</span>
  </em>
  <span>, no one else's. Not anymore. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Not ever again. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eileen likes Sam, too. He can see it in her mind, bright and warm. She thinks he's handsome and sweet and she has some strange sixth sense warning her that he is not like her, but she doesn’t care. When he’s too nervous to use ASL like now, he makes every effort to speak slowly and keep his mouth fully visible. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’ve been waiting for you to ask</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she signs with a grin. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Sam puts down the knife, focusing on the way the skin of fingers pull as he clumsily signs back, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I was nervous!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>As you should be! I promise that I bite,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she replies, that wide smile Sam just can’t get enough of spreading across her face. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m counting on it,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>Sam signs back, much slower than her. His fingers will be stiff in the morning, scabbed and painful. The ache will be good, it will be solid and his because he made it. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Eileen signs something back, but her hands are too swift and nimble for him to catch it all, so he just watches them move, enraptured. He thinks that whatever he is feeling in the pit of his stomach is much better proof of living than failed knife tricks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This</span>
  </em>
  <span>- this nervous joy, the warmth in his cheeks, the way his heart is beating a little harder than normal- this is something the demons could never think up. Eileen’s is a face Lucifer will never take from him, never mimic or ape. Sam won’t let him. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’s making the choice to believe that this is a happiness that will last. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Love Always wakes the Dragon</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Dean gets a year of grace, in the end. He settles into the sedentary life of a bar owner much easier than he thought he would and he finds that the relative simplicity suits him. It's a little ill-fitting like a puzzle that was only mostly solved right, two pieces that fit together accidentally set on different sides, but still good. The puzzle still makes a recognizable picture and Dean is still the calmest he's ever been. The </span>
  <em>
    <span>Wayward Sun</span>
  </em>
  <span> is doing well- business is up now that the word has spread to the rest of the hunters and they even get the occasional tourist stumbling in. Sam has fallen head over heels for Eileen, a hunter they met a few months back and they think Dean hasn’t noticed yet, which is adorable. Bobby calls once a week ostensibly with leads on new cases and phone numbers to update his fake agency rolodex with, but it’s really just to trade gossip and Dean is more than okay with that. Sheriff Jodi Mills even stopped in recently. She said it was to make sure Sam and Dean are really doing something legal these days, but Dean recognized the looks in her eye. She can’t forget what she saw and she doesn’t want anyone else to see anything like it again. Dean will welcome her into the fold when the time comes. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>All in all, life is good. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He can even admit how much he misses Cas out loud now. (He only managed it once and it was to an empty room, but that counts, right? </span>
  <em>
    <span>It counts.</span>
  </em>
  <span>)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It’s nearly three in the morning. The doors closed hours ago and Sam had long since gone to bed, but Dean has been nursing beer at the bar for a while now. Something is holding him here, something says he needs to be standing </span>
  <em>
    <span>right here</span>
  </em>
  <span> when- </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The doors blow open and a flutter of wings herald a new arrival. A dark haired woman stumbles in with a toddler in her arms, both of them covered in soot. Dean’s reaching under the bar for the double barrel shotgun with its consecrated iron rounds even as he says, “We closed quite a while ago, ma’am. There’s a gas station a couple of miles down the road.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>She steps fully inside and the doors close behind her with a loud, final </span>
  <em>
    <span>bang</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “You’re Dean, right? Dean Winchester?” she says. Dean opens his mouth again but she cuts him off with, “He said I’d know the Righteous Man when I found him.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>His breath goes out of him. “‘He’?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Castiel,” she says. “He said we would be safe here.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean drops the shotgun onto the bar. “Where is he? Why didn’t he come with you?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The woman comes up to the bar and Dean finally notices how awful she looks. She limps a little and the soot clings to a nasty cut on her forehead. The sleeping toddler she holds looks fine under the singed pink bunny suit they wear. “What’s your name?” he asks. “Can I get you water? Food?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m Kelly Kline and this is my son,, Jack,” she says, dropping into a barstool. “We’ll be fine. Castiel has been protecting us for a while, but he said the angels were getting too close. He took us here and went in the opposite direction to draw them off. I don’t- I don’t know when he’ll be back. If.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Martyring son of a bitch,” he mutters.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Please don’t curse in front of Jack,” Kelly says. “He repeats everything.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>That startles Dean. He had thought the toddler was asleep but when he looks down, he realizes Jack’s bright eyes are wide open and watching him intently. Dean waves. Jack says in a sweet, piping voice, "Hello!" His pudgy little hand waves through the air quickly before reattaching itself to Kelly's coat. "Dad's on a hunting trip," the boy adds. "He'll be home soon."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Again, his chest shudders with breath. How many times had Dean said that? How many times had he been lying? Then he hears the part that's actually important. "'Dad'?" </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kelly laughs a little. "Castiel is as good as. I don't… know who the father is," she says and it sounds like she thinks she's lying. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean goes along with her. "So why are the angels after you? I mean, I know they're di- I know they suck," he says hurriedly, just barely catching himself, "but they don't usually hunt down single mothers."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The little boy pipes up again. "The angels say I'm wrong. They want to…" he trails off and looks up at his mother. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kelly is frowning as she resettles her son in her lap, her eyes hard. "Eradicate, baby. Raphael said he wants to eradicate you. But we won't let that happen," she adds, staring down Dean. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He deliberates for half a second. After all, whatever gets the angels so riled up has to be dangerous, right? Well, yeah, probably, but Dean will simply never retire from the business of pissing off angels. He nods to Kelly and grins down at Jack. “Words with more than three syllables don’t count in this house, kid. Whatever Raphael wants with you, he’s gotta take up with me.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Jack giggles and squirms in his mother’s lap. She sets him carefully on the floor, watching intently as he stumbles forward a few steps. "Castiel will be sad to have missed this," she says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"I'll show him when he gets back!" Jack says. His steps are steady now and he is beginning to wander under the tables. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean looks between them. "Show him what?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kelly doesn't look away from her son. "Jack is three days old. These are his first steps." </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean thinks of Emma, sixteen in a week and looks closer as Jack. Yes, his once perfectly sized little bunny suit is stretching dangerously around his legs now and his eyes are too intelligent and he's half running through the bar, playing some game with the legs of the tables that only he knows the rules of. "Firsts are important, no matter how fast they happen," he says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Kelly looks back at him finally and her pale eyes catch the reflection of nonexistent light. Their color is strangely ephemeral, going blue and then gold and then blue again. "They are," she says. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>It's nine in the morning and Sam is way too awake. It was four when Dean went to sleep and </span>
  <em>
    <span>maybe</span>
  </em>
  <span> his age is catching up to him, but his head hurts and all he can think of is how much he wants to go back to sleep. Sam perches on his desk chair with a cup of coffee, frowning. "And she said Cas sent her?”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah. Listen, man, I don’t know why you’re asking me. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re</span>
  </em>
  <span> the mind-reader in this family.” He wants to cover his eyes and go back to sleep but he pulls himself up to sitting instead. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Sam rubs at their temples with one hand. “I can’t read </span>
  <em>
    <span>them</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Don’t tell me they’ve got, like, psionic shields or something.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Psionic-” Sam starts to ask before realizing it’s easier to let whatever Dean says ride. “No, it’s not like shields, they’re just indecipherable. Like… Like when you learned Ancient Greek and all the letters were just gibberish at first? That, but there’s no books and no Bobby to help me make sense of it.” </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Kelly’s human,” Dean says. “That doesn’t make sense. Unless… Whatever made Jack changed her, too.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“What makes you so sure </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>didn’t make him? This reeks of a demon deal, Dean.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Dean thinks of the look in Kelly’s eyes last night when Jack took his first steps. He thinks of the way her voice wavered when she said how old he was and how adamant she was about her son’s safety. “Even if it is,” he says slowly, “she’s made her decision. It’s our job to help her, Sammy.”</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>“Yeah,” they say. “Alright." </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>